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7 June 2020

Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.

10.0 |
The FT

The American singer proves once more that she is one of her generation’s definitive pop stars
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9.1113212

9.1 |
A.V. Club

As always, Lover is an album Swift made for her fans. But it also feels like a record she made for herself, unburdened by external expectations and her own past
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8.4113229

8.4 |
Earbuddy

This is Swift retracing her steps and going back to a place that’s been focus-tested to work for her
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8.0113332

8.0 |
The Quietus

Lover is a joyous ride – perhaps looking backwards too often but still both thrilling and endearing – with one of the finest songwriters of the modern era
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8.0113099

8.0 |
All Music

Swift is embracing all aspects of her personality, from the hopeful dreamer to the coolly controlled craftsman, resulting in a record that's simultaneously familiar and surprising
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8.0113071

8.0 |
The Independent

There is a brilliant album among the 18 songs, if only it had been pruned a little. But Swift has never been one to hold back, and it’s hard to resent her for it. This is the sound of a singer excited to be earnest again. Taylor Swift is dead. Long live Taylor Swift
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8.0113082

8.0 |
Rolling Stone

Her epic seventh album is all about big moods, dreamy Eighties throwbacks and evolutionary freedom
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8.0 |
NME

8.0 |
The Irish Times

This a stronger offering than Reputation, with Swift returning to the place that suits her best: writing personal songs that create an entire world designed for two
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8.0113112

8.0 |
The Arts Desk

'Lover' trades in what Swift does best: hyper-specific details made universal enough for every first dance
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8.0113134

8.0 |
Exclaim

Following the fun-all-the-time mentality of 1989 and the chaotic aftermath of public backlash on reputation, Lover hears Swift back on stable ground
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8.0113163

8.0 |
Evening Standard

Though twee at times, it’s a much more likeable collection than the defensive Reputation. It ends with the lovely Daylight, perhaps the rarest Taylor Swift composition of all: a love song with a happy ending
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7.5113118

7.5 |
Consequence Of Sound

The volatile pop sensation chooses to focus on love rather than pettiness on her new record
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7.1113105

7.1 |
Pitchfork

On her seventh album, Taylor Swift is a little wiser and a lot more in love. Though uneven, Lover is a bright, fun album with great emotional honesty
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7.0113108

7.0 |
Slant Magazine

The album attempts to be something to everyone, the surest tell that it’s as much reaction as it is creation
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7.0113103

7.0 |
Clash

Ultimately, the album’s highlights are those songs where the voice and sentiment we hear is truly her own, the enthralling, stirring, emotion- manipulating voice that’s threaded its way through every album since her 2006 debut, not the voice that leans too close to what the pop music machine demands
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7.0113156

7.0 |
Spectrum Culture

Lover is a cornucopia worth combing through to find some of Swift’s best, some of her worst and a lot of her most interesting songs
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7.0113424

7.0 |
music OMH

It’s an album that screams out for an editor, but when it hits the right notes, it demonstrates just why Taylor Swift is one of the biggest pop stars in the world
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7.0113237

7.0 |
No Ripcord

Lover is a plethora of things: a Taylor Swift genre sampler, an argument that Jack Antonoff is her best collaborator, a continuation of her problem with lead singles, and a collection of great synthpop songs, but the best part of it is that Taylor seems like she’s never been better
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7.0113303

7.0 |
PopMatters

Taylor Swift looks back on her youth as both mood and metaphor, marking a significant shift from the storytelling in Red, 1989, and Reputation
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6.6113114

6.6 |
Sputnik Music (staff)

On an album this long, there is equal room for good and bad, and you’re always equidistant from either one no matter what track you’ve reached
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6.0113101

6.0 |
The Observer

After the hard edges of 2017’s Reputation, Swift’s latest album revisits the catchy pop and romantic concerns that made her name
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6.0113072

6.0 |
The Guardian

Lover offers plenty of evidence that Swift is just a better songwriter than any of her competitors in the upper echelons of pop
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5.8113165

5.8 |
Paste Magazine

Maybe we need to calm down, but Swift's new album is a cliche-ridden waste of time
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1.0113470

1.0 |
The 405

From the painfully dull 'Me!', all the way through to the AI-generated lyrics for 'London Boy' - which somehow created social media fodder more interesting than this mess of an album - you're left wondering who Lover is for
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